ROR DIARY : RESTRUCTURATION.

[Estigia]

I really thank you for taking the time to write a post like this, it must be difficult. I have been playing WAR and then RoR since... i cant remember. I love the projet and the work you have done, but I feel right now everything is so confusing and toxic... I don´t feel really like playing. I just hope things will change for the best and the projet and you guys will find the best way. Best of luck!

[Loreithian]

Good evening Yali, or Fred.

Just to be as frank as you, my handle is Loreithian or my real name is Dale. I am a 36 year old assistant Bookkeeper and have just got engaged to a wonderful woman I have been with for some years. I have read your post a couple of times and frankly applaud both your content and honesty within your "wall of text". Frankly I appreciate honesty and decency within people (as it can feel like it is in such short supply in this day and age). These both help to lead and keep respect among people. Respect by my opinion is EARNT and not GIVEN or should be expected. Honestly, you have long since earnt mine and have continued to do so. Who am I? Honestly, no one special, like I said, I play with numbers all day!!! I stay in the shadows of this game sometimes at night, sometimes at the weekends; very rarely posting on the forum. Only speaking to others ingame in a way that I hope is a decent way and sometimes trying to remind other players that you guys and gals are simply doing your best with what you got. Hell, last time I saw this is an Alpha Phase!!!

I will admit, for me I was about to pack in this wonderful project. A project I have played since before T1 was even a realised thing. A game where I was running around with a level 4 or 5 Warrior Priest, only being able to auto-attack with no working other abilities. At this point I was hooked on this project and have played on and off ever since. Praising and letting people know of the great work being done, call it a tiny return for the hardwork yourself and everyone that has ever poured into this for free.

I am not the only one who is disappointed in the previous happenings that was the Q&A debacle (a fair comment I don't feel is unjustified). Frankly if that wasn't enough, it was the poorly written and downright vindictive letter that was posted on the site news section for a few days that angered me no end and was about to cause me to throw the towel in. I think we can agree, as can Torque himself, he is not a people person. What I mean by that without geniunely being insulting, is the ability of speaking and purposefuly attempting to avoiding conflict while communicatng. Now the content of said letter is frankly not WORTHY of anyones time so I won't be commenting on it further.

To say disappointment that was allowed to even be present at all doesn't cut it, and would be fair to say a few others would agree? Maybe...

However, the fact you are taking a bigger step towards moving into the project, even though you are nervous (highly understandable) says it is worth sticking with. At the end of the day, I don't agree with you keeping Torque on, his own comments are enough to condone him, no matter how much supposed love and want is present for the project. However, it is your decision and I will respect you for it and can only hope others can learn to do so as well. I am sure others will agree that with some of the changes you wish to bring, this should change some of the dynamics that so desperately need to be adjusted.

I apologise for my mini-wall of text, but oddly, felt I wanted to communicate and share with you (plus anyone else who feels inclined to read this post)on a forum when usually I am to be found in the background.

The only other thing I wish to mention is to anyone else, who like me, felt like packing it in due to what has recently happened, please re-consider. Stick with the game. Afterall, if you are enjoying it, why give it up? For others like me, who loves the game but also cares who and how it is governed? I personally believe Yali and indeed Max are working very hard on sorting the current talked about issues and deserve peoples backing and respect in order to continue doing so. This project deserves far more attention and respect than a thieves server!!

All the very best to all Players & Staff, may I share in glorious battle with you, be you friend or foe on the field!!!

Loreithian

[Gruikgruik]

Thanks Yaliskah

[Morf]

I have only heard and read bits of this whole situation and in all honesty im not surprised at all.

Yali i respect you as a person, you are a good guy but dam you cant continue to sweep everything under the carpet which is basically what you are doing with "apparently" restructuring things.

Deal with the problem, the problem, the person/ppl who on there/his own is responsible for harassing, bullying and threatening players and even staff members, so much so that countless players have left the game and also some staff members, and to top it off this person is basically responsible for warhammer apoc server due to his behaviour to others.

Whats more important to you Yali, the community and the project or those in places of power that have betrayed everyones trust, including yours ? these ppl are not your friends doing what they have to YOUR server.

[Wam]

Hard to see things change to be honest, is it too little too late? is it another cover up? is the attitude towards playerbase the same from the past within the leadership? because it seems forced and not whole hearted. My opinion doesn't really matter though or change things because i am a peasent and have no idea about anything according to some people

The restructure is trying to appease and salvage a mess to stop the people with pitch forks who no longer fear threats or being banned for speaking openly and honestly? Is it just a plaster or is it the real change that is needed to salvage project and put it back in the right direction where it should be and everyones time/focus channeled in more creative and productive fashion instead of firefighting?

One of my pet peeves as always been you guys have never taken community relations(your image you project to the community) that seriously and the attitude towards the "community" the "players" when the curtain gets pulled back and exposed sometimes and its very distasteful and so many missed opportunties which you could of taken advantage of.

If you cared / tried to cultivate a community with better harmony, these drama's would be alot less likely to happen... sure you can't please everyone, but with silencing, threats, abuses of power that got out of hand and been going on a long long time... you are wasting your manpower and dead old MMO have limited manpower so its pretty bad.

The problem I see is the mindset, all players are "whingers, shitters, toxic" etc unless you personally know them or they brown nose you, you put us in a box and paint with the same brush... Not all players are trolls, and just because someone has a different opinion doesnt make them a troll either.

You guys need to take a step back and breathe and escape from the stress, instead of let it corrupt you and think all the peasent players (or shitters) are the same.

Its like GM's, not all GM's abuse their powers... but some do, some harras and cross the line... I was harrassed and threatened to be banned also for just playing the game... good thing i recorded and sent privately and dealed with it in a mature way behind the scenes... because i don't care for drama but i also don't appreciate bullies either and lies/abuse of power. So if leader of one of the most active guilds gets lies spread about them and threatened it made me feel bad for casual player who don't record(have evidence, your word vs someone with title and make belief story) falls in the crosshairs because someone's having a bad day and taking it out on another because they can't help themselves.

I am sure many other incidents happend with red warning flags... but they was just probably ignored and ignored and things have built up until the dam burst and created this massive **** storm which is really harmful to the project which is a shame... it's a shame it take something so drastic to make leaders wake up and realise importance of players when they are haemorrhaging. Its a dead mmo, your player base is limited guys... your actions or inactions to negativity/abuses matter... of course certain players/trolls when they go too far should be reprimended but there as been alot of hostility towards the playerbase for a long time, and now its the other way around... because of all this abuse and double standard which has happend.

I only seen real accountability from Aza who live and die by the sword to make the change needed (Maybe Yali is now trying to take some accountable steps/measures also, or is it smoke and mirrors again to deflect attention from abuses of power by leadership? )... and Aza's no longer part of the team because all other options simply didn't work, ignored, brushed under carpet. Same old, same old. You guys have another opportunity from this mess but if i was a betting man i think you will make same mistakes, I very much hope i am proved wrong though.

Do I automatically think all GM's are bad because one lied about me and tried to get me banned over dying in PVP in a PVP game...
nope, I've had positive encounters with atleast three of them which was helpful to say the least, I don't tar everyone with the same brush... each person is individual and their own actions reflect themselves but it shows there are issues which is not healthly if people in power try abuse their position and not held accountable.

But lack of action is another thing. The favourtism and double standard... the buddy buddy system as it were, im not sure you guys realise how each cog in the wheel is important. Dev's are important, GM's are important, but players are also important... and players are a resource which could of been used alot more instead of treated with disdain.

Transparancy, accountability, communication and more importantly respect... just basic levels of respect... you demand respect then you abuse the communities trust. Treat players civil.
Respect is earned, treat others how you wish to be treated.
Take away the title next to the name, say it was random joe who acted the same way as some people with abuses... they would of been banned in a heartbeat if a peasent/player acted in such a manner.

The whole thing leaves bad taste in the mouth... because it could of been nipped in the bud along time ago and the project/community/stress for leadership be alot more healthier than the current status quo.

In TUP we had 44 code of conduct to stop **** shows happening... so people knew where they stood and was no grey area or double standard for me or my guys and gals, it prevented alot of headaches only kicked 2-4 people for serious breaches(like racism/harrasment etc) of COC... warned a handful

Needless to say I wish you guys good luck getting your own house in order, but i remain skeptical... i don't want your hard work to be wasted or undone by just mismanagement or ignorance of community's importance and mishandling or misunderstanding their outrage at the double standard and cover up's which have happend to sweep it all under the carpet time and time again. You can only divide and conquer the playerbase so much until there is none left. Then it's too late to rectify mistakes which again is a shame. how on the one hand you demand respect and then on the other why do you even have a list of rules when they don't even apply equally to all? and are vague / cherry picked to suit one's own agenda at the time. Many contradictions and bridge burnings to alot of players who don't get me wrong some was but not all of them to be the bad guys they made out to be...

Regards Wam

[Nefarian78]

You all know that the "Shitters" (as "someone" said) have been incredibly dissatisfied with the staff-player relations for the past 2+ years, you know why the "shitters" rioted and stole the source code to make their own server, you know what caused the QnA shitstorm to happen. And yet, you refuse to acknowledge it, you refuse to remove the source of the problem. You refuse to save Return of Reckoning and instead you only worsen the situation.

You can fool others and probably will, but this doesn't work on me (And i suspect many others). It is pathetically easy to read through the lines and see the true motives why this "restructuration" is happening exactly right now. Your hand was forced. You did not do this by your own volition, you're just starting the damage control engines. When this inevitably does not have the intended results, what are you going to do? Try to sweep everything under the rug with new gear? A new dungeon? Forts? It's not going to work.

This diary is an insult to your playerbase (Ah, my bad. Should have used the staff-approved term of "Shitters") inteligence. This goes to show how much you care and know your community. You know nothing and do not care.
I can TLDR this entire diary very easily: "We know exactly why this is happening, we do not care and will not remedy to that, so here, take this diary and please let us fool you again into thinking we care."

At this point, i'm not even angry about it, just disappointed. I strongly suspected this was going to happen sooner or later when Azarael came back and my suspicions were confirmed when i learned the QnA was not going to be hosted on the official RoR discord.

This is the last nail in the coffin.

[ragafury]

I think the trust is broken. For the moment.

This post can be the first step on a road to rebuild it. And it has to be.
Many more steps have to follow on the road.

I wish MaxHayman and Yali much sucess in doing so.

Much hope and many eyes rest on your future actions, and I really hope you take the responsibility for the many fans of this game, which still login daily, to make it what it never really had the chance to be. The game deserves it in my opinion. The passionate, sometimes too passionate, community also.

1.
I seriously hope that RoR will be the server in the future which the community will choose to play on because they feel heard, treated well, welcomed and respected.

2.
I hope everybody, on the community and on the team can put there egos aside to make this server home to a large variety of players, returning or new ones, competive or casual.

3.
I also hope, that transperancy, future communication internally in the team and externally with the community will be handled in a more professional and careful way than it was before.

And these are the parts which actually need work. Hard and deticated work. Every day. By all staff members in there areas of responsibility.

Aza, Secrets, besides many others were a huge loss in terms of talent and / or detication, but you never know what the future brings, and never say never.

Time mends all wounds they say, and maybe this had to happen for a true and wholehearted change.

If not, future looks dire.
It's time to get stuff done.

I wish you best of luck and wise decisions for achieving greatness.

[kmark101]

I'm surprised that noone offered you this solution before or that you gyus are not working like this, but a project on this scale, with the current trust level should operate like this:

- There is a live server and a test server (ideally a 3rd, sandbox environment as well)
- Product owner(s) have full access to administrate the staff access levels, basically that's the only thing they have to do in this case
- Only the head developer(s) have full access to all of them and they are the only ones who can deploy code to the live server
- Coders can do anything on the test server (and everyone can do anything on the sandbox, which resets/clones from time to time to keep it somewhat close to the test server), but they are on regular player level on the live server
- Staff members are regular players on the live server as well, without any extra power
- Administrators (or GM's in this game) have game and player administration controls in the live server, but they have no access to the test server at all (so they can't deploy ninja code) and can't contribute to coding at all. All their activities are logged which can be analyzed.

I know this sounds like a lot for this hobby project, but I believe so many players are playing (and "paying" with their time!) that you have certain responsibilities now and this structure would help you to avoid any similar situation, lots of dev companies are using it (including mine).

On the related topic, even thou I don't get upset if anyone abusing their superpower in game (I mean who cares, it's a game and it's not like you can't play after that 3 minutes.. even if he kills your character with cheat who cares... you don't lose anything) I think you should just send Torq to a few months of holiday so he can breath some fresh air and take a small break (if I'd be him I'd volunteer for this myself to be honest, seeing all the protest), same with Aza (but he left). I don't think you need to burn bridges or boot anyone from the project (especially valuable coders who already learnt how the game engine works!), but sometimes it's good to take 2 steps back and then go forward.

[Sgttimmen]

Hello Frank!
My name is Tim and im a 49 years old guy, married, grown kids, working with sound engineering (mixes, mastering, producing). Since im drowning in work from now until after christmas i wont be able to play at all for some time, but i wish you guys the best.
I didnt quite follow the drama and im not interested in details or any of it, just wanna say hi and goodbye if the server is gone next year. We never know. Anyway thanks to you all.

[Mystry]

If Torq is remaining on staff, then I am glad to hear that he will not be involved in balance anymore. I simply do not trust him with anything involving balance, given his track record of extreme class bias.

It doesn't help that I also tend to play the classes that he hates the most.